Saturday, 30 August 2008

Ever since Corrie producer Kim Crowther came on board earlier this year, she's been making regular reference to Coronation Street's past. I'm not the only Corrie fan to notice and Corrie fan Matthew has emailed me with his observations.

For instance, so far we've seen the return of Sunny Jim and Jackie Dobbs but there have been more subtle hints too such as old photos on display in addition to the one of Uncle Albert in Ken and Deirdre's living room. We've now also seen Emily and Ernie's wedding photo, and Jed Stone's pictures of Minnie Caldwell.

But wait, there's more.

Rita recently made a comment about a mug which Mavis bought for her birthday, we've had Audrey reminiscing about Alfeh and Claire Peacock finding Irma Ogden's old paintings in the attic. Has anyone spotted any more recent references to Corrie's blasts from the past?

Wednesday, 27 August 2008

Yes, it's that time of the week for another of those faces. It's the Steve McDonald gurn of the week. With thanks again to Coronation Street fan Cheryl for sending in the pics! Want to see last week's Stevie McGurn? Click here.

Debbie Oates has been writing for Coronation Street since 2002 when her first script was transmitted in November of that year. In 2012 Debbie wrote episodes that won a BAFTA for Best Soap. In 2012, the episode ‘Becky’s Final Farewell’ won the Soap Award for Best Single Episode, and is nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Best Epidsode of a Long-Running Series.

As well as Coronation Street, Debbie has written episodes of other excellent TV shows including Robin Hood, Fat Friends and Drop Dead Gorgeous. She also wrote nine episodes of Liverpool soap Brookside.

Radio work includes two plays which were both transmitted on BBC Radio 4: Dennis Ockerby on Ice (which starred Corrie's own David Neilson aka Roy Cropper) and Pongo, Sadfish, Blackie and Sid.

However, it’s in theatre where Debbie Oates seems to have been most prolific. She’s written over 10 theatre plays and the list includes Angels and Amazons (1992) and Belly (2000).

Debbie was also selected for the Carlton Comedy Screenwriter’s Course and the BBC Drama Screenwriting Course.

Monday, 25 August 2008

Greetings and welcome to another weekly update. This week finds your updater another year older, having celebrated a birthday in the last few days. Thankyou to all who emailed birthday greetings, they were very much appreciated. I’m planning to continue celebrations well into next week by taking an eye test. I’m hoping for specs just like Deirdre. And so, with the Dub Pistols on CD and without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.

Margi Clarke as Jackie Dobbs hit Corrie again this week, the first time since she and Tyrone took up unofficial residence in Curly’s house on the cobbles years ago. At that time, Man City fans at a match chanted to actor Kevin Kennedy, who played Curly and was spotted in the footy crowd, “There’s a Scouser in your house!” Well, the Scouser's back. Last time we saw her Jackie Dobbs had been banged up with Deirdre “I diddunt-doo-anneethink” Barlow who was sent down after John the fake pilot set her up. Deirdre has yet to come face to face with ex-cell mate Jackie this time around and this Corrie fan can only imagine that Deirdre’s face on seeing her again will be something like this:

Anyway, Jackie manages to fleece Tyrone and Molly out of their wedding funds after Scary Brian threatens to beat up Jackie for not paying her bills. At least, that’s what Jackie tells Tyrone but the truth is that she’s had a boob job in Spain and needs to clear her cleavage cost. As Jackie butters up Tyrone and Molly in a posh place she’s house-sitting for Ewan and Breenan (lovely couple) while looking after their big fat cat called Madge, there’s a fella watching the house, drumming his fingers on a car steering wheel. They’re angry fingers, full of tattoos and a sovvy and they belong to Scary Brian. He’s scary, he’s called Brian. He does exactly what it says on the tin plate in his head. And he gets his cash after he threatens Jackie Dobbs into handing over the dosh, no matter where it comes from - Ty and Mol’s wedding fund.

She’s got pink hair this time around, but Jackie Dobbs shows her true colours when she tells Tyrone she wishes he'd never been born once he hands over the dosh. She turns up later in Jack Duckworth’s backyard only to get short shrift from the working-class wall of strength that is Aunty Pam and Jack who turn her on her heel and send her down the ginnel. But she’ll be back, just you mark my words. Margi Clarke doesn’t come back for just a bit part.

Elsewhere this week, Vernon waxed lyrical in Roy’s Rolls that his Rock Rhythm Rascals were once “this close to a support slot with the Flying Pickets.” Didn’t he know that one of that band once went out with Deirdre? Well, they did you know. I guess we’ll never know how much more exciting Deirdre’s life might have been if she’d wed a Flying Picket.

In the cab office, it’s John Stape’s turn to sit in the Streetcars seat of shame and confess all to Eileen. She knows, you know, does Eileen, I think she’s a white witch. She knows who put the smile on John’s face but it’s not Eileen’s place to criticise or condemn, that’s left to us viewers as John and Fiz get close and kiss once again. Living rooms up and down the country hummed to the sound of Corrie fans tutting and saying “Oh no, Fiz, no.” Even Kirkeh’s Julie comes out with some words of advice for her new bessie mate Fiz. Indeed, she even burst into song but it still doesn’t wipe that silly smirk off Fiz’s face that she and John “fit” together. Pavers shoes and my feet “fit” together; doesn’t mean it’s a good look.

The Websters set off on holiday to Greece although it’ll take them at least a month to unwind as Kev’s all upset over Tony Gordon’s world domination plan. It continues apace when the Victoria Court flats are officially opened with a champagne reception served by a tiny skirt with Rosie Webster in it.

Dev takes the keys to his new flat and Prem and Nina come for a look-see. Nina makes it clear she wants to rock Dev’s world in a way Dev’s never been rocked before, well, not since his dalliance with Deirdre. In the next few weeks we’ll see Prem and Nina’s daughter Tara arrive and Dev will be caught in a love triangle between mother and daughter. And not for the first time either. He only needs to bag Blanche and he’ll have scored his Barlow hat trick.

And as for Tony’s plan to oust Jed Stone from his home, he puts the old fella in th’ospital and leaves a cheque on his hospital bed (white starched sheets, green knitted blanket). Jed’s in bits and pulls close to his chest the only item left to him in the world. It’s an old biscuit tin full of cash and old photos of him with Minnie Caldwell. It fair brought a tear to the eye.

In the Kabin, Rita takes a phone call from Emily who’s in town but has forgotten her credit card PIN. She tells Norris to go into her bedroom to retrieve the number from her dressing table drawer. Norris gets the shakes going into a ladies’ bedroom, but he finds the number easy enough. What else he finds leaves him in a state as there’s an envelope in the drawer marked “Not to be opened until after my death”. He tells Rita about th’envelope, she tells Emily and of course it gets back to Norris. Emily shows him the contents, it’s her wishes for her funeral and Norris can’t help but bitch about her choice of funeral choonage. Anyway, before I press on, a word about Emily’s bedroom because as far as I know we’ve never seen it before. It’s everything you thought it would be, I’m afraid, with no surprises. It’s pink flowery wallpaper, old bottles of scent, heavy oak furniture, a wedding picture of her special day with Ernest, bottle of blue WKD and an Anne Summers catalogue on her bedside table. I made some of that up.

Over in the kebab shop, David makes Tina jealous by making Amber happy. Poor Amber. She thinks she’s on to a good thing when David takes her to the Leeds Festival and she’s really loving being with him. She’s been after him long enough, but David’s only doing it to make Tina jealous and it’s working, it really is, although she tells Darryl it’s not. But it is. Anyway, speaking of the Leeds festival, I travelled back today from Leeds station to London on the same train as the festival fall-out and the place was like a zoo. A smelly, tired, muddy but very happy zoo. I just hope they pay the Leeds station cleaners double time for today, they surely deserve it.

Talking about kebabs, Jerry’s worsening health delights Theresa, the only woman to make custard with the help of a pestle and mortar. She adds eye of toad and leg of newt to Jerry’s diet and he’s really, really ill but no one’s figured out what she’s up to just yet.

Gail continues to romance Joe although so far it’s not got past the white wine stage. She cooks him sea food which he can’t eat because he swells up, which is a shame, because she was probably hoping that would happen.

To the question of where Coronation Street fans have seen Scary Brian before, the answer is - just about everywhere. He's the fella who's menacing Tyrone's mum Jackie Dobbs.

The actor is Paul Oldham and as his entry on the IMDB confirms, he's one of those actors that have appeared in just about everything on telly that you've ever seen. He also appeared in the 2005 movie Cold Blood.

Kym said: "I’ve always had dogs and they’re considered a real part of the family. When we went to the local breeder, I sat down on the floor and Charlie literally came up to me and fell asleep on my lap, so you could say that he chose me! They do say that dogs choose their owners. PDSA makes having a pet accessible to all and it’s really important that us pet owners support them as they do such great work.”

News that Bradley Walsh has been signed up to present a new ITV game show comes as a surprise to Coronation Street fans who were expecting the return of Danny Baldwin this summer.

Bradley Walsh is currently starring on the BBC reality show Maestro and his new ITV game show will air in the autumn. However, the actor's official website still says that he's returning to Corrie as Danny Baldwin this summer. How odd.

Bollywood beauty Ayesha Dharker will join Coronation Street as Tara Mandal, daughter of Prem, who's a big noise in carpets. When Dev meets Tara he'll be smitten and ends up caught between Tara and her mum Nina.

ITV has confirmed that fans will see Ayesha on screen in September.

Bombay-born Ayesha has also appeared in Star Wars Episode II and Doctor Who.

Mark Wadlow hails from Middlesbrough and managed to get his home town mentioned in a Corrie episode. He started his writing career in partnership with Peter Morgan. As students the pair of them came up with a play called Gross, based on Mark's summer job at a call centre, took it to the Edinburgh Festival and were talent-spotted by a member of the audience who worked for a firm that made training videos.

The Morgan and Wadlow partnership's next breakthrough was input on the script of John Schlesinger's movie Madame Sousatzka. Wadlow and Morgan then went on to write films The Secret Touch (1992) and Dear Rosie (1990). Mark Wadlow has also written episodes of Robin Hood, Bad Girls, The House of Windsor, Lost in France, Castles and Shalolm Joan Collins.

Mark’s first Coronation Street script was transmitted in August 1993. If you can help update this writer's profile, leave a comment below or email me here.

Hello and welcome to another weekly Corrie update. This week the update comes anticipating cake, lots of cake, as it hurtles towards my birthday this weekend. And so, without any further ado, here we go with this week’s Coronation Street update.

He’s more Alan Bradley than Richard Hillman but Tony Gordon’s ready to enter that special, dark room at the back of the Hall of Fame that’s home to Corrie’s Best Villains. First it was bats and this week it’s cats as Tony throws an old man out of his home and tosses his cat to the cobbles. And this is no ordinary old man – it’s Jed Stone.

That was Jed then, back in '66...

And this is Jed now, over 66...

Jed’s got a photo on his mantle from the old days with Minnie Caldwell who he always called Ma. He’s got history has Jed Stone, but that counts for nowt to men like Tony Gordon. Tony wants Jed out of his house so he can bulldoze the terrace to make way for a multi million pound development in the back end of nowhere. And when Tony threatens the old man, Jed collapses in pain clutching his chest. Tony whips out his phone, tells Jason to get round there and board the house up. Tony’s second call is for an ambulance and as Jed’s carted off to t’hospital, he sets Jed Stone’s cat to the ground and shoos it away. But this is no ordinary cat, it’s Sunny Jim. Sunny Jim! Before you know it he’ll be miaowing an SOS to Rita in The Kabin. “What’s that Sunny Jim?” she’ll call out from the counter. “Jed Stone’s tekken poorly and even though we haven’t seen him for 42 years we’ll all rush to his bedside and mount a defence against the evil Tony Gordon?” And Sunny Jim will nod his head and lead the soap OAPS from the cobbles to Jed Stone’s hospital bed. But before he does that, I hope he has a cat crap on Tony’s shoe.

Tony’s causing more problems for Kev at the garage. Kev’s called out to service a busty blonde on a breakdown only to find the woman driver had simply ran out of petrol. While he’s filling her tank with his nozzle, Kev’s breakdown truck is stolen and there’s worse to come when the insurance won’t pay up as he left the keys in th’ignition and they’re citing negligence. Kev’s world is slowly crumbling and no one seems to care. Mind you, he’s never been the same since his moustache was shaved off.

Now then, we saw summat this week in Corrie we’ve never seen before; the upstairs flat in the Rovers Return. We’ve seen the bedroom before when Jack and Vera lived there and when Shelley was held as a paranoid prisoner in a pair of bad pyjamas. And now we get to view the rest of the upstairs as Steve and Michelle decide to give their relationship another try. However, all’s not well in the love department when Michelle meets old mate JD on a karaoke night in town. Steve’s not best pleased to find JD staying overnight at the pub and goes all out to get Michelle back. He succeeds but then she announces she’s off to Belgium on a tour with the band and JD. Or, as Steve likes to call him, Jer Der.

Ken Barlow’s been luckier in love than Steve McDonald this week, and that’s not something I’ve said in an update before. He and Deirdre get back together, have a cuddle by Uncle Albert’s photo and then Ken propositions his missus. “D’ya fancy having a Deirdre in the back yard?” he asks her. “You what?” I said out loud at the telly. “You what?” said Deirdre in surprise. Apparently, to “have a Deirdre” is to have a drink of wine in like, really, really big glasses. I don’t think you have to wear the glasses, you just drink from them, but I could be wrong.

Over at Eileen’s, Sean’s upset to find a few lines and wrinkles and considers having Botox but he can’t as he’s frightened of needles and a big prick. Anyway, he and Marcus go to the clinic together and although Sean comes out in the same Botox-free state that he went in, the visit changes Marcus’ life and he decides to become a Botox practitioner. He has to attend a two day course so packs his bags and moves away leaving Sean home alone to worry about wrinkles.

Tina and David officially fall out, again, this week after David stalks his ex-girlfriend at work in the kebab shop. He orders 10 kebabs just to spend time in the shop and then locks himself in until she speaks to him. She didn’t of course and David got chucked out by Jerry who has this week been eating curry. (This storyline went nowhere but it was a nice rhyme that I wanted to use.) Tina gets her revenge when she visits David at work at Peter and Paul’s, the posh hair salon in town. She pretends she wants a haircut and demands that David wash her hair. But when she’s mid-soak and David hadn’t even got round to asking where she was going for her holidays, Tina pulls a tantrum and causes a scene, spraying water at David who is then promptly sacked. He’s back to sitting around on the sofa all day while Gail takes phone calls from Tina’s dad Joe asking her on another date and promising to spank her. Really, he did. I don't know about you, but I shuddered.

Molly’s Aunty Pam is in a bit of a pickle. In fact, she’s got it all over her hands and half way up her arms. Molly’s lost her engagement ring, the one Jack handed down from Vera, and Pam knows it’s in the pickle somewhere. This is pickle she’s been flogging up and down the Street and she finally narrows it down so she knows exactly which jar of pickle Molly’s ring is in. Trouble is, the jar with the ring in it is now in Emily’s raffle hamper for the Friends of Weatherfield Hospital and Emily, being Emily, won’t be bribed so Pam can win.

And finally this week, Roy returned from visiting Hayley abroad. It can only be a matter of weeks before Hayley returns and when she does, she’ll get as much of a shock as Roy did when he walked into the cafe to find Vernon had replaced Roy’s trains with 45rpm singles. Instead of pictures of steam engines and rail tracks, there were guitars and rock posters. But Vernon’s dream of turning the Roy’s Rolls into a Weatherfield Hard Rock café – Hard Luck Chuck Café – turn to dust when Roy’s eyes met the menu board offering fries instead of chips. And as we all know, Roy is not a fries guy.

Five things we learned in Corrie this week.

1. John Stape reads The Guardian2. Fiz is a fan of The Simpsons3. Steve McDonald reckons Take That is suitable music for seduction4. Balaclava Terrace has a restaurant called A Slow Boat to China5. Liz McDonald once went on a weekend break to Brussels

And that’s just about that for this week. If you'd like to receive these weekly updates automatically via email, have a look here for details of how to sign up.

Carmel Morgan grew up in a spam coloured council bungalow near Oxford. She graduated in Liverpool in 1987 and spent ten years working as a press officer, but longed to become a writer. After many years of idle optimism, she finally began writing full-time in 1999, serving an apprenticeship on the second series of The Royle Family. In July 1999 Carmel landed her dream job when her trial script for the groundbreaking Channel 4 soap Brookside was given the thumbs up. She went on to write over forty episodes of Brookie before joining Coronation Street in 2002.

Still a regular Corrie writer, she took time out to pen an episode of Paul Abbott's Shameless and more recently, to write a stage play for Dawn French and Alison Moyet. The play, Smaller, toured for six weeks at the beginning of 2006 before an extended run in the West End.

Carmel co-created Drop Dead Gorgeous which centred on an ordinary family's bruising encounter with fame. The series starred two ex-Corrie faves, Lee Boardman, who played Jez Quigley, and Kathryn Hunt, who played Angela Harris.

Carmel is a member of the Philip Larkin society and explains on the Larkin Society website why she chose one of Larkin’s poems to feature in an episode of Coronation Street: “I included 'Born Yesterday' in the episode of Coronation Street for 19th March 2004. It was the christening of Tracy Barlow's baby, and 'Born Yesterday' is the reading. Unfortunately the obligatory soap fracas curtailed its beautiful ending, but I scripted it so we heard the lion's share. I was delighted to be able to plug my favourite Larkin poem - and it was perfectly suited to the storyline. I'm proud to write for Corrie and honoured to honour Philip Larkin".

And finally, I have it on good authority that, like me, Carmel is a huge fan of singer Alison Moyet. So much so, that she managed to include Alison on a real-life name check when Cilla Battersby-Brown was selling stuff on eBay. Attagirl.

Thursday, 14 August 2008

With thanks to the anonymous Coronation Street fan who emailed in with this one! The Corrie fan sent an answer to a query on the blog from another fan who was asking where they could buy the slippers shown on the Harvey's ad.

Harvey's the Furniture Store, as we all know, are Corrie's sponsor.

Well, if you'd like to slip on your slippers while watching your favourite soap, you can buy them right here.

Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Emails are coming in asking where Coronation Street fans have seen the actor who plays Joe McIntyre, father of Tina and new fella of Gail's. Well, the actor is Reece Dinsdale and he's got an extensive history of acting work on TV in the UK. He starred in the BBC's Conviction before joining Corrie and also popped up in an episode of Life on Mars. Reece Dinsdale's other TV credits include The Chase, Love Lies Bleeding and Ahead Of The Class. His film credits include the critically acclaimed I-D.

Yes, it's that time of the week again. Who'd have thought our favourite Coronation Street fella could gurn and smoke tabs all at the same time? Want to see last week's Corrie gurn of the week? Click here.

There's some great news for Corrie fans who voted in the blog poll to bring back their favourite character. Curly Watts topped the poll as the Coronation Street character most fans would like to see back on the cobbles - and guess what - it might just happen so keep your fingers crossed.

What's On TV quote actor Kevin Kennedy, who played the lovable Curly, as saying: "I never say never. I still chat to the producers about other things and that's still a possibility. But we have to wait until the right time and the right story comes along."

If I had to name just one reason I enjoy Coronation Street so much, it'd be the dialogue. And of course it's the talented team of writers who put the words into the mouths of the actors on screen. I've been thinking for some time of writing short and sweet profiles of each Corrie writer and I'm starting with one of my faves. I'll blog the rest of the writers in turn when the mood hits me. If anyone reading this, including the writers themselves, would like to add or amend anything to the extensive research that is two minutes on Google, do please let me know.

And so, here we go with the first in the Coronation Street writer profiles: Jonathan Harvey.

Jonathan Harvey was born in Liverpool in 1968 and educated at Hull University before moving to London, where he worked for four years as a special-needs teacher at a comprehensive school in Thamesmead, the area where his film Beautiful Thing is set. He started writing at the age of 16 and continued writing whilst studying and teaching. It was for his play Wildfire that he was awarded an attachment to the National Theatre's Studio at the end of 1992, prompting him to give up his teaching post and write full-time. His play-turned-film Beautiful Thing was a landmark in gay storytelling, featuring working-class teenage lovers and a happy ending. The film won 'Best Gay Film Ever' on Gay.com. His BAFTA nominated sit-comGimme Gimme Gimme beat Will and Grace to the gay man/straight female flatmate format. Harvey also wrote the book for Closer to Heaven, a stage musical with songs and music written by the Pet Shop Boys. And it's been rumoured that he's now working on a film with Simon Cowell. His new comedy drama Beautiful People started in October 2008 and was shown on BBC2. Jonathan also leads the writing team for the new telly series of Britannia High.

Jonathan Harvey now brings his touch to some of the most comic and touching episodes of Coronation Street. He was drafted in to Coronation Street in 2004 to guide the Street’s first gay character, Todd Grimshaw.

The actor playing Todd left and Harvey has had more fun with the flamboyant gay barman Sean and villainous Tracy Barlow, who, in an exquisitely vicious attack, described the Rovers landlady Shelley as “a hippopotamus with split ends”.

From The Times: “I was offered Coronation Street a few times but always said no. I thought it was beneath me, to be honest,” Harvey says. “But it’s really nice to be writing for something that you know is going to be on screen.” He likes writing for Sean. “The fans think he’s a negative stereotype because he’s camp. But he’s got a dick. He’s unapologetic. The hard thing has been coming from theatre, where you handpick people and feel connected to a show, to somewhere where there are lots of actors, some good, some not so (booo, he won’t name names). You quickly learn who says your lines correctly and who doesn’t.” The producers “are always trying to tone down my campness”, he claims.

Harvey admits to feeling “awestruck” the first time he walked on set. “It’s like the family silver. To go from the Bush Theatre with 80 people watching to 12 million is something.” The street itself is two-thirds of the size of a real street, “so most of the actors are really small. Sally Webster is like a doll. Cars rarely park on the street because if they do they dwarf at least three houses.” His only niggle is that Corrie “swallows up stories so quickly. I loved Raquel having a dinner party and saying: ‘You can’t go wrong with boil-in-the-bag.’ That to me is more memorable than Maya setting fire to Dev’s shop.” This fan can only agree.

In 2011, Jonathan Harvey wrote the successful stage play based on Coronation Street, Corrie!